10 best fonts for dyslexia (and how to choose one for your website)

More people than ever are being diagnosed with specific learning disorders, and reading is often the hardest part of daily life for them. In this article, we look at the fonts that genuinely help people with dyslexia, what the research actually says about them, and the other design choices that matter just as much as the typeface itself.

What are specific learning disorders

Specific learning disorders (SLDs) are neurodevelopmental conditions that affect a person's ability to read, write, or calculate accurately and fluently. They usually become noticeable once a child starts school, when tasks that feel automatic to most people, sounding out a word, copying a sentence, working out a sum, turn out to be genuinely difficult.

Depending on which skill is affected, specific learning disorders go by different names:

• Dyslexia: a specific reading disorder, seen as difficulty decoding text.

• Dysorthographia: a specific writing disorder, seen as difficulty with spelling and phonetic accuracy.

• Dyscalculia: a specific disorder of number sense and calculation, seen as difficulty understanding and working with numbers.

• Dysgraphia: a specific disorder of handwriting, seen as difficulty with the motor skill of writing.

None of these conditions is caused by low intelligence, environment, psychological factors, or sensory impairment. They come from how certain neural networks process reading, writing, and calculation, nothing more.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific reading disorder that shows up as difficulty decoding text. It's also one of the most common learning impairments: estimates suggest it affects around one in ten people, with some sources citing figures as high as 15 to 20% depending on how dyslexia is defined and diagnosed. Put simply, a meaningful share of your visitors may struggle to read your website exactly as it's built today.

People with dyslexia typically have the same range of cognitive ability as everyone else. What differs is how their brain processes the visual form of written words, which is why reading and spelling take more effort even when comprehension and reasoning are strong. A website that wants to be accessible, and every website should, needs typography that doesn't add friction on top of that.

Common fonts that work well for dyslexia

Choosing dyslexia-friendly type doesn't mean redesigning your whole site. Several fonts you probably already have work well, based on guidance from dyslexia organizations such as the UK's British Dyslexia Association (BDA) and the US-based International Dyslexia Association (IDA):

1. Arial

2. Calibri

3. Century Gothic

4. Comic Sans (yes, we know designers don't like because they think it's too informal, it but it's very readable. Justice served for Comic Sans!)

5. Helvetica

6. Lexend

7. Open Sans

8. Tahoma

9. Trebuchet MS

10. Verdana

11. Bonus: Accessiway Accessibility Archivo - it's the font that's currently being used on our website. It was born out of a collaboration with the original Archivo designers to further improve its readability score.

These are all sans-serif fonts (fonts without the small decorative strokes at the ends of letters), widely available, and free to use, so you can apply them without extra licensing costs.

Lexend is a more recent addition: it was designed specifically to improve reading fluency and has been added to Google Fonts and several browsers' accessibility settings.

Fonts designed specifically for dyslexia

Beyond mainstream sans-serif fonts, a handful of typefaces were built from the ground up for dyslexic readers, with heavier letter bottoms, wider spacing, and shapes designed to reduce letter confusion (b/d, p/q, and similar pairs).

What the evidence actually shows: the research here is more mixed than marketing pages often suggest. A widely cited eye-tracking study by Rello and Baeza-Yates (2013) found that ordinary sans-serif fonts with good spacing, such as Helvetica or Verdana, performed as well as or better than several specialized "dyslexia fonts" for reading speed.

More recent reviews, including guidance from Dyslexia Scotland, note there's no consistent evidence that specialized fonts outperform standard sans-serif fonts with proper spacing.

Our suggestion is to treat OpenDyslexic, Dyslexie, and similar fonts as options worth offering.

Letter, word, and line spacing tend to matter more than the specific letterforms.

Beyond the font: design choices that matter

The font is only part of the picture. There are several other choices that make text easier to read for people with dyslexia and for everyone else in general:

1. Use sans-serif fonts. Letters without serifs are less crowded and easier to tell apart, even though serif fonts are often considered more readable by the general population.

2. Choose a comfortable font size. Aim for at least 12 to 14 points for body text, with headings around 20 percent larger.

3. Increase line spacing. A line height of around 1.5 gives the eye room to track from one line to the next.

4. Avoid pure white backgrounds and super high color contrast. High-contrast black-on-white text can create visual glare for some dyslexic readers. A soft off-white or pastel background paired with dark text is often easier to read, while still meeting the contrast levels required for low vision.

5. Skip italics, underlines, and full capitals for body text. These make words look like they run together. Use bold for emphasis instead.

6. Align text to the left. Justified text creates uneven spacing between words that can disrupt reading.

7. Write short, direct sentences. Long, complex sentences add cognitive load that has nothing to do with the font. You can check readability by using one of the many free tools you can find online.

Making your website accessible

Font and layout choices are a meaningful first step, but web accessibility works best when it covers every type of disability. Accessibility means making sure people with disabilities can use the technology a website offers, and what accessible actually means shifts depending on which disability you're designing for.

That's a lot to take on for a small team, which is why Accessiway pairs AI-driven scanning with expert human consultants to make a website fully accessible without a heavy price tag. Accessible sites also tend to convert better.

Frequently asked questions

Is Comic Sans actually dyslexia-friendly? Yes, technically: the British Dyslexia Association includes it among its recommended fonts, since its irregular letterforms reduce confusion between similar characters. In practice, many people find it too casual for professional use, so it's a reasonable fallback rather than a first choice for a brand website.

Is OpenDyslexic free to use? Yes. OpenDyslexic is released under the SIL Open Font License, so you can download and use it, including commercially, at no cost.

What does the British Dyslexia Association recommend for dyslexia-friendly text? The BDA's style guide recommends plain sans-serif fonts at 12 to 14 points, 1.5 line spacing, left-aligned (not justified) text, no italics or underlining, and dark text on a cream or pastel background rather than pure white.

Do dyslexia-friendly fonts also help people with ADHD? Some do, since generous letter and line spacing reduces visual clutter and makes it easier to keep your place on the page. There isn't strong dedicated research on fonts and ADHD specifically, so the safest bet is to apply the same spacing and layout principles rather than relying on any single "ADHD font."